The current status quo between event organizers and event registration service providers resembles Faust’s deal with the Devil. If you are unfamiliar with the story here’s the gist of it – Faust makes a deal with the Devil exchanging his soul for a period of power and success. The comparison might seem a bit harsh at first, especially considering event organizers aren’t really surrendering their moral integrity, but in the long run they are definitely giving more than they seem to realize.
If an event organizer wants to provide the potential participants with an automated and easily accessible online registration method for their event, they have two choices. One is to pour time and money into developing such a solution internally. The other is to use one of the many existing softwares out there that would allow them to handle the registration process in a few easy steps for considerably smaller costs compared to the first option. Can you guess which is the more popular choice?
Event registration services are sexy and they know it
Unless the organizer is feeling particularly masochistic they are always going to choose one of the many services out there to help them handle the registration process for their event. These services know exactly how attractive they are and they use that knowledge wisely. All they ask from the organizer is to give them a small amount of every ticket sold. And let participants register for the event through, with, or both through and with the said service provider. And let the provider collect all the money from the event sales on behalf of the organizer. And eventually allow the service to contact the organizer’s customers with information and promotional offers from other event organizers. While some will think there is nothing wrong with this, which is fine really, surely most can see why the Faustian deal analogy isn’t that far off.
Not every event registration service is the metaphorical Devil
With new developments in the event tech industry there are now solutions for the organizer that don’t go the traditional route. As such they offer features that give considerably more control to the organizer and help them maintain and strengthen their own brand, without sacrificing any of the functionality expected from that kind of service.
Here are 5 important features that organizers should look for when choosing an online event registration solution:
#1 Integrated registration form on the organizer’s own website
The first step in giving more control to the organizer is providing a solution that allows them to have the registration form for the event on their own website. That way their customers can register for the event without having to visit third party websites and are much more likely to complete the registration process. Another benefit of this is the organizer gets to strengthen their own brand and increase its recognition among their customers, as opposed to popularizing some other brand or service.
#2 Participants don’t register with third parties in order to register for the event
Some of the biggest online event registration solutions currently require the potential customer to register an account with them or at least provide some personal information to use the service. That itself is no big deal until one goes through the parts of the Privacy Policy that concern the use of Personal Data and realizes that the registration service will more or less own at least some of it and use it for their own marketing purposes – to send various promotional materials, display off-site advertising content, create email campaigns, and even share some of the Personal Data with their affiliates. None of this really benefits the organizer or the participant. Logic dictates organizers need a service that lets the potential participant register for the event, without having to register for or with any other service. Which leads us to feature #3.
#3 The organizer retains 100% of the event and participant data
Only the organizer should retain all event and participant data. It’s important for them to build their own customer database as well as have detailed information about their event’s most prefered promotional and special offers, ticket categories, payment methods, and so on. There are solutions out there that provide such functionality and it is up to the organizer to find the right one at the right price. In any case it’s worth the time to look into these solutions as it’s a huge step towards improving the business side of organizing events.
#4 The organizer communicates directly with the participant
Another new direction for event registration services is to let the organizer communicate with their participants directly – all automated messaging and email communication is sent from the organizer’s own email address straight to the participant. This again helps build a stronger relationship between the organizing company and its customers. Which also leads to easier customer retention for the next event and higher trust in the brand.
#5 Payments go to the organizer without the registration software acting as a middleman
Last but definitely not least come the payments. The latest innovation here is the way these are handled between the organizer and the event registration service. Nowadays the organizer can receive money from their event sales directly. Once the money is in their own virtual or very material pocket they pay up what they owe to the registration service. That way they get their money faster and easier, compared to most of the more popular registration solutions that act as a middleman and charge a sometimes steep processing fee at checkout.
The evolution of online event registration services
Choosing the right solution for online event registrations can be a tiresome task, especially considering there are approximately a gazillion of these out there. Some are excellent and will undoubtedly help the organizer sell more tickets, some are ridiculously bad and are likely holding an event back from reaching its full potential, most are somewhere in the middle, but very few offer all of these 5 key features together. At least, if one’s willing to change the status quo, knowing what to look for makes things much easier.
Weemss is a relative newcomer in the online ticketing and event registration solutions market, but it is eager to leave its mark on the industry by providing a new way for organizers to create, promote, sell, and manage their events. The service is web-based and gives organizers complete control over their events, data, and revenue, as well as a number of other cool features designed specifically to allow organizers around the globe to make the absolute most from their events.
Ivan is Head of Product at Weemss and does not, in fact, converse with the Devil. No, really, he doesn’t. We promise.
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